FFS the best threads always when I forget about the forum or I'm away for holidays.
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Yea we need to use the thread planning better and take into account Safebets birthday, anniversaries, and all the important stuff.
We can, and I am.
Statistically it's Valverde, whatever ranking we apply. But stats doesn't tell all about how big champion someone is/was.
For me it's Contador, than Bala, then Boonen, Cancellara, Nibali, Froome, pick your own order, and then Sagan, Gilbert, Cav.
No matter the point system, it's pretty crazy that the difference between Valverde in 1st and Sagan in 2nd is almost the same as between Sagan and GVA in 11th place.
Yep, i can agree with that. But i do think the system to subtract points exponentially going down isn't bad for determining or ranking all-time/career best. Looking back at a career, it shouldn't be determined by 6th or 9th places. But i agree about the race cat. should be much more decisive.
I'd honestly be very interested if we'd compose a top50(100?) cyclists of the 21st century.
Everyone with at least 150posts would be eligible to contribute their top50. We'd be able to compose a pretty cute list. No future results are to be included, only 2001 results onwards.
Everyone with at least 150posts would be eligible to contribute their top50. We'd be able to compose a pretty cute list. No future results are to be included, only 2001 results onwards.
I fully agree with that. I was just noting it's a lot more aggressive than most other systems do, but it works well considering on the rolling 12 month ranking 2nd place in a GT/monument is often like 75 or 80% of the winner.
And point systems in general are not nearly aggressive enough in scaling down points from big races to small races to me.
Might as well state the obvious.
Categorization/value of races over time. Is there an actual case for Romandie being a tier lower than Pais Vasco? Has Burgos always been as important as Romandie?
Then obviously having races in the ranking that existed only for less than 30 years (ITT Worlds and ITT Olympics) or were open to pros for less than 30 years (Olympics RR). Or the Euros which only had 6 editions.
Then there are National Championships which are more likely to be about the team strength an size than any other race.
Strade Bianche is a different race in terms of field quality now compared to the early editions.
Plouay is a '15 points' race now and Paris-Tours is a '10 points'. Seems like Cyclassics is '15 points' purely because of it's WC heritage which does not really feel right.
I mean it's commendable attempt, but also comparing something not really comparable.
Last year, with no sport to report, the Spanish sport newspaper Marca did a list of the top 100 Sportsmen (just men) of the 21st Century. There were 10 cyclists on the list. This is where they came.
17 Froome
29 Contador
35 Nibali
41 Wiggins (track obviously considered)
44 Cancellara
48 Valverde
57 Sagan
69 Freire
82 Booner
95 Cavendish
The full lists if you want to have a look
50-100: https://www.givemesport.com/1573631-the-100-greatest-sportsmen-of-the-21st-century-10051
1-50: https://www.givemesport.com/1573622-the-100-greatest-sportsmen-of-the-21st-century-501
I personally don't think anyone who has not won the Tour can be considered the best cyclist of his generation. And I'd have to rank GTs over monuments abd WC, because the type of engine required to win a grand tour, above all the Tour, is generally a rarer and hence more select specimen all clinical matters aside. It's no coincidence that, historically speaking, riders capable of winning multiple classics, but are not competative in GTs (mostly because they can't handle high mountains, at times TTs too) are rightly considered of a lesser caliber than riders who can win even just the Tour (I'm talking about a bona fide Tour winner, not the fluke one time yellow jersey in Paris) let alone the Tour and also some classics. Increased specialization since the 90s has resulted, most unfortunately, that often GT winners don't even race the classics, although the trend happily at least in part seems to be reversing. Then there are riders whose plamarès don't reflect the true quality and claliber of the engine they were born with, who thus failed to live up to their potential. Top on that list would have to be Greg Lemond in my opinion. Although to be fair he did have a near fatal accident arguably at the peak of his powers, which cost him greatly. That he wasn't French also didn't help early in his career.
The first batch of the top 100 contains the greatest Norwegian, a Belgian who became a cycling commentator, and a German who has just retired last month.
100 Maurizio Fondriest 240
99 Gerrie Knetemann 241
98 Octave Lapize 242
97 Gianni Motta 245
96 Danilo Di Luca 245
95 Tony Martin 248
94 Robbie McEwen 249
93 Fred De Bruyne 252
92 Thor Hushovd 254
91 Pascal Richard 254
Because of Der Panzerwagen's retirement I can't put anyone in bold this time.
Yes, those are tough calls to make. For the one-week races I gave 20 points for two French races, one Swiss, one Italian and one Spanish. That seemed rather balanced, but it means indeed that Basque Country gets more points than Romandie.
Recent races like European Championships are hard to call. You can hardly treat them as a small race, so 15 points seems fair. The Olympics I only counted since 1996, when they turned professional for cycling.
Then there's the problem of races changing quality over time. I gave the same points to the same race, regardless of its official status that year. I realize that some races have gone up or down in official and unofficial status, but it would be too hard to draw the lines.
About new and old races: some new races have appeared on the calendar, but others have disappeared. E.g. there was no WC time trial in the past, but there was a Grand Prix des Nations. In general I think riders of the 1960s and 1970s have an advantage, because they had a full calendar and they didn't have to compete with countries outside of Western Europe.
About the Tour vs. other races: I think in the public mind the Tour is overrated compared to other races, as if it's the only race that really matters. A list like this is clearly in the advantage of riders with a long and steady career, who perform well throughout the season. However someone who focuses entirely on the Tour and wins it, will always be a bigger star.
If you adjust the points for certain races, and check everything thoroughly, some riders in the lower parts would move up or down ten or fifteen places, but the top part of the list wouldn't change much, because the gaps get bigger towards the top. As the title says this is only a rough attempt, but I do like the result better than other lists I've found on the Internet. Of course there can never be a final and ultimate ranking, but I do like the exercise and the following discussions.
100 Maurizio Fondriest 240
99 Gerrie Knetemann 241
98 Octave Lapize 242
97 Gianni Motta 245
96 Danilo Di Luca 245
95 Tony Martin 248
94 Robbie McEwen 249
93 Fred De Bruyne 252
92 Thor Hushovd 254
91 Pascal Richard 254
Because of Der Panzerwagen's retirement I can't put anyone in bold this time.
Yes, those are tough calls to make. For the one-week races I gave 20 points for two French races, one Swiss, one Italian and one Spanish. That seemed rather balanced, but it means indeed that Basque Country gets more points than Romandie.
Recent races like European Championships are hard to call. You can hardly treat them as a small race, so 15 points seems fair. The Olympics I only counted since 1996, when they turned professional for cycling.
Then there's the problem of races changing quality over time. I gave the same points to the same race, regardless of its official status that year. I realize that some races have gone up or down in official and unofficial status, but it would be too hard to draw the lines.
About new and old races: some new races have appeared on the calendar, but others have disappeared. E.g. there was no WC time trial in the past, but there was a Grand Prix des Nations. In general I think riders of the 1960s and 1970s have an advantage, because they had a full calendar and they didn't have to compete with countries outside of Western Europe.
About the Tour vs. other races: I think in the public mind the Tour is overrated compared to other races, as if it's the only race that really matters. A list like this is clearly in the advantage of riders with a long and steady career, who perform well throughout the season. However someone who focuses entirely on the Tour and wins it, will always be a bigger star.
If you adjust the points for certain races, and check everything thoroughly, some riders in the lower parts would move up or down ten or fifteen places, but the top part of the list wouldn't change much, because the gaps get bigger towards the top. As the title says this is only a rough attempt, but I do like the result better than other lists I've found on the Internet. Of course there can never be a final and ultimate ranking, but I do like the exercise and the following discussions.
Remove Wiggins (considering only road racing) and add Gilbert around the same level as Sagan, this seems like a fairly good ranking. That would mean:
- Froome
- Contador
- Nibali
- Cancellara
- Valverde
- Gilbert
- Sagan
- Freire
- Boonen
- Cavendish
The Tour might be considered overrated only insofar as traditionally the routes are pretty standard (although that seems to be changing somewhat as of late - but the Giro still has the best routes) and it is usually raced rather conservatively (unlike the Vuelta), once a clear favorite emerges. But it has to be. Everybody knows the stakes for sponsorship publicity and future rider contracts are simply ten times higher than any other race on the calendar. Perhaps in the entertainment value sense, therefore, the Tour is too big for its own good. Yet precisely for this reason every rider, from the team captains to the lowly domestiques, shows up in his absolute very best possible condition. Level of fitness and performance wise no other peloton has the horse power of the Tour. Given all of this, the rider who wins the Tour is usually the one who is a cut above the others in a given year. The one who wins multiple Tours makes an era.
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I think track, cyclocross, and mountain bike success should be included. The riders results could have been better if they focused on just road instead of branching.
Alternatively, you could have two different rankings. For me, I'm only able to really consider raod racing. I'm not that into the other variants.
Give negative points for CX and MTB world titles. The disrespect
Armchair cyclist
Moderator
Next time you're getting married, remind us to keep it boring...
Don't know. I would have put him before Sagan at my personal ranking. And move Boonen up. So for pure classics specialists, we have Gilbert-Bettini-Boonen-Sagan-Freire in that order.
What do yo mean here?
Bettini have Olympics and one more Worlds. Gilbert has on the other hand won both cobbles and hilly monuments in addition to a shitload of semi-classics. It's close, but I have Gilbert barely ahead of Bettini.
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Gilbert has the rare merit of having won both hilly and cobbled monuments. Can't find any other rider in recent times that can compare to that. He's in a class of his own, so he's hard to rank against other classics specialists.
I think the best way to do that would be have users submit a ranked Top 10 list, with 10 points for first, 9 for second etc. Then tabulate total points for each rider. That should normalize outliers etc...
I think Sagan was the "best" rider of the 2010s but wouldn't argue strenuously against Contador or Canc.
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